BitPesa is facilitating intra-African trade through its cross-border and foreign exchange platform that offers low-cost money transfers to corporations, SMEs, and individuals.
The company, which was founded in Nairobi, has beaten all odds to become the go-to cross-border and FX platform in Africa. According to Elizabeth Rosiello, BitPesa’s CEO and founder, the startup faced challenges such as scepticism when it began operations in 2013. Nevertheless, the company was able to increase interest in its products and services by creating awareness.
BitPesa now has operations in West Africa, Europe, and other parts of East Africa with plans to expand to North Africa, South Africa, and the Middle East in the near future.
Taking Leaps in Intra-African Trade
As an enabler in intra-African trade, Rosiello believes that the newly signed free trade agreement by 44 African states is a great step towards boosting economic growth in the continent.
However, she acknowledges that African nations still have a long way to go in bridging the gap between policy and implementation in order to reap the benefits that the agreement promises to offer. Additionally, she believes that some potential changes that might be effective are customs union, free-trade zones, and more visa-free zones.
How Does BitPesa Work
BitPesa accepts bitcoin from self-funded wallets and allows users to convert fiat currency to bitcoin. The company uses integrated mobile money platforms and API to offer its services to the following customers:
- Individuals
These are people who buy and sell bitcoins. They simply send their local currency to BitPesa’s bank account or to integrated mobile money platforms. BitPesa then sends bitcoins to their wallets.
- Businesses
These are customers that do not come into contact with bitcoin. The companies send local currency to BitPesa’s bank account or via mobile money and partner brokers take the BTC and exchange it to fiat. Therefore, the recipient gets the money in their local currency.
A New Upcoming Product
BitPesa will be launching a new innovative financial product for its users in May. The product rollout will begin in Nigeria and then expand to Uganda, Ghana, and other markets.
While BitPesa would also like to make the product available for Kenyans, they are still waiting for an indication from regulators. BitPesa views the establishment of the blockchain and AI taskforce as a good indicator.
BitPesa halted its services to new customers from Kenya in September last year after a regulatory directive prevented them from holding accounts with local banks.
However, BitPesa has been engaging with the Kenyan regulators in the hopes of changing the status quo.
“We are always in conversation with the stakeholders because Kenya is where we started and it continues to be an important market to us,” Rosiello said during an interview with the Kenyan Wall Street.
BitPesa is using the blockchain to facilitate intra-African trade and remittance payments, proving that the technology has a lot of potential to bring change to emerging markets. Furthermore, BitPesa has shown that not all startups using bitcoin are pyramid schemes.
